Tulia: Story of a drug bust gone wrong

Cassandra Herrman, left, and Kelly Whalen are producers and directors of the documentary Tulia, Texas.

Cassandra Herrman, left, and Kelly Whalen are producers and directors of the documentary Tulia, Texas.

Photo: Ryan Anson, ITVS

Photo: Ryan Anson, ITVS

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Cassandra Herrman, left, and Kelly Whalen are producers and directors of the documentary Tulia, Texas.

Cassandra Herrman, left, and Kelly Whalen are producers and directors of the documentary Tulia, Texas.

Photo: Ryan Anson, ITVS

Tulia: Story of a drug bust gone wrong

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Cassandra Herrman has been crisscrossing the country in recent weeks, hosting screenings of Tulia, Texas, her documentary with co-director Kelly Whalen about the genesis and aftermath of the 1999 drug bust in Tulia, a Panhandle town of 5,000 between Lubbock and Amarillo.

Now Herrman will let PBS do the work for her, as the documentary series Independent Lens broadcasts the film at 10 p.m. Tuesday on KUHT (Channel 8) and other public television outlets.

Tulia, Texas, is, by now, a familiar story to viewers who have followed the case and other similar cases involving rogue undercover agents, mass arrests, lengthy sentences and the slow, painstaking journey toward vindication for wrongfully incarcerated defendants.

“It reflects a national problem,” Herrman said. “There have been dozens of problems involving drug task forces across the country. Tulia could be your town. We’re not singling out Texas. It could be, and has been, New York, Massachusetts and California.”

Note spoilers in the next two paragraphs: The film tracks the June 23, 1999, arrests of 46 suspects, 39 of whom were African-American, based on the work of Tom Coleman, the son of a Texas Ranger, working undercover for the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force.

Within four years, after a group of attorneys that included Jeff Blackburn of Amarillo substantiated significant discrepancies in Coleman’s casework, 35 of the Tulia defendants were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry. Two years later, Coleman was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 10 years probation.

Herrman and Whalen began working on the film in 2002, and, as would be expected, the film focuses on several defendants and family members. The most riveting element, though, is the degree to which Coleman cooperated with Herrman and Whalen throughout much of the five years they worked on the film.

“People generally are surprised that he spoke with us,” Herrman said. “When we came into the story, there had been some rumblings about his casework but not much. He was still open to telling his side of the story. He was a little defensive but not to the point he was when he finally stopped speaking to us.

“I think what appealed to him is that we were going to tell a more full version of the Tulia story. We told him up front we were speaking to everyone involved. That element of equality appealed to him.”

Even a documentary needs a villain of sorts, and, given the resolution of the Tulia cases, you’ll never find a more loquacious, steadfast defender of his own actions than Tom Coleman.

“If you called him today, he would say the same things he said to us,” Herrman said. “He never wavered in that. It was just the details that wavered quite a bit.”

Herrman and Whalen worked on the hour-long film through 2007 and premiered it last spring at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. The two have visited more than 50 cities, including Canyon and Amarillo, for screenings and forums sponsored by Independent Lens’ Community Cinema project.

“We always viewed the film as part small-town portrait, part courtroom thriller,” Herrman said. “At its heart, it’s the portrait of a small town, but it reflects a national problem that affects all of us. It is a cautionary tale about the war on drugs and its effect. It’s about a rogue cop, but it’s also about how we have allowed situations like this to happen.”

Tulia, Texas, is straightforward linear filmmaking, starting with the 1999 drug busts and working forward rather than revealing the outcome of the case upfront.

“We thought about peeling back the events, starting with the releases, but we wanted viewers to come into the experience fresh,” Herrman said.

“This is what happened, here are the former defendants, and you walk through the story with them.”